i should like to point out, to the good people of fora.tv, whoever they may be, that the dude's book is actually titled "Death by Black Hole And Other Cosmic Quandaries"

not "quandries"

puh-lease

as for this guy being a great public speaker... yawn

he's certainly no carl sagan

Animatronx
—
2008-04-05T10:36:28Z —
#5

Don't like the sound of this

Datura
—
2008-04-05T14:25:46Z —
#6

r937 said:

i should like to point out, to the good people of fora.tv, whoever they may be, that the dude's book is actually titled "Death by Black Hole And Other Cosmic Quandaries"

not "quandries"

The misspelling can happen to anybody who writes a book. At some point the author loses the control over the process and becomes a victim of whatever is done to his work. I have been in those shoes with my work, it is horrible when that happens, but there is nothing you can do at that point unless you are in a power position of some kind.

I like the man, he is a wonderful speaker, in contrast to the pompous speaking of Sagan, give me this man any time.

r937
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2008-04-05T14:40:10Z —
#7

ulrike, the book is fine, it's the people at fora.tv who got it wrong (see image in post #1, and compare to book cover shown on amazon.com)

the way tyson speaks, he's far too much in love with himself for my liking

at least sagan had an appropriate amount of humility when talking about the universe

Datura
—
2008-04-05T15:29:55Z —
#8

r937 said:

the way tyson speaks, he's far too much in love with himself for my liking

at least sagan had an appropriate amount of humility when talking about the universe

I love Tyson because he is wonderfully engaging and does not take himself too seriously, he allows for fallacy. I think he values himself, which he should

Sagan pretended humility. I do not care for humility, humility in my view is not a virtue. Humility that is not genuine is even worse.

Do not ask me to go into detail about this, I can not point to single incidences, it is just an impression I got over the years. Sagan started to grate on my nerves with this after a while. I also enjoyed watching him for the first few times, until I became aware of this.

molona
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2008-04-05T17:01:08Z —
#9

He is a great speaker as well as Carl Sagan was too, they have different styles but, what it is more important, both of them get to engage the public and both explains everything in a very neat and clear way so they get the message across.

About the subject... well, you can listen to the guy or you can watch Armageddon, I guess

Shaun
—
2008-04-05T17:42:07Z —
#10

That's what I think too.

All I know of Carl Sagan is what I looked up on Youtube after molona told me about him.

Yup... they're different types of speakers, but I won't say one is better than the other.

As far as who they are (or were, in Sagan's case) in their own homes... well that doesn't matter to me.

I still think Carl Sagan was the inspiration for Agent Smith, though. The similarity is too uncanny, Mr. Anderson.

Shaun
—
2008-04-05T17:47:27Z —
#11

All that aside though...

I think in 2029, seeing that meteor pass by would look really cool !

Below our orbiting satellites!... wow!

chris_fuel
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2008-04-05T17:55:41Z —
#12

Well, assuming this thing does hit I better get my bad self out of here Kind of creepy considering he makes references to Malibu (where I work) and Santa Barbra (REALLY close to me). Me thinks I need to hurry up with moving to Japan and hoping this tsunami doesn't come to close to it...

molona
—
2008-04-05T20:02:54Z —
#13

Having second thoughts, and this is somehow related to the previous thread, if what Mr. Tyson says is true, and a meteor will hit the Earth and maybe kill life as it happened with dinosaurs.... well, that save us from discussing if humans will make it to Civilization Type I or II or III, because I don't think that in 28 years we will be able to leave Earth and live in Mars :lol:

r937
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2008-04-05T20:13:04Z —
#14

molona said:

if what Mr. Tyson says is true, and a meteor will hit the Earth and maybe kill life as it happened with dinosaurs....

then i am starting to drink, as of today

oh, wait, i already do

Datura
—
2008-04-05T20:41:29Z —
#15

Prost Rudi I'll join you. Discussions while enubriated are so much fun :D:D:D

r937
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2008-04-05T20:46:50Z —
#16

Datura said:

enubriated

freudian typo of the week!!!

Datura
—
2008-04-05T21:25:38Z —
#17

hahaha - my typing is not the best, my spelling not either. This is funny

molona
—
2008-04-06T09:29:43Z —
#18

Conclusion = we will blame Freud for typos and for meteors that want to hit the Earth, and of course, for R's Datura's drinking habits :lol:

Datura
—
2008-04-06T14:15:50Z —
#19

Yep, blame it on Freud, all the bad things that happen should be anyhow. What a fraud that Freud was…

chris_fuel
—
2008-04-06T14:57:29Z —
#20

I never could quite understand the fascination people have about finding out how the world is going to end. If you keep worrying about things like giant meteors crashing down on earth and destroying humanity, you're not going to be able to go day to day with much optimism. With that in mind, I made this memorial picture to dedicate how no deathday meteor is going to bring down my day to day life: